Chris Polentz designs Us Mint coin for America’s 250th anniversary
San Marcos artist Chris Polentz joined the us mint after applying to its Artistic Infusion Program three years ago and later designed a 2025 American Liberty High Relief Gold Coin. His work put him inside a team of more than 30 artists helping create designs for U.S. coins and medals, including a coin tied to the country’s 250th anniversary.
Chris Polentz and the Mint
Polentz said he sent samples of his art, filled out the application and forgot about it. When the acceptance email arrived, he said, "You just don’t know these days," and added, "I was surprised that I had actually been selected. My work is not what I would call mainstream."
He said the Mint’s design process is detailed and begins with new artists being flown to Philadelphia for a four-day educational symposium before any design work starts. Polentz described the assignment as part of a larger effort, saying, "We are recording American history on coins and medals" and that "it is quite an involved process," as the Mint reviews designs for coinability and mintability before committee review.
Philadelphia symposium
The Mint’s program brought together more than 30 artists from across the country, and Polentz was one of them. The U.S. Mint has been depicting the story of the country on coins since 1792, and the semiquincentennial-related work put a local artist into that long-running process.
Polentz said his first Mint design, the 2025 American Liberty High Relief Gold Coin, took about a year and a half to develop and was minted last year. He said his sunflower-and-honey-bee design drew on the Fibonacci Sequence, which he described as "a wonderful hidden representation of the people and government arranged in an organized, harmonious fashion working and growing together," while the reverse side featured a swirling eagle.
2025 American Liberty coin
The same design was selected as one of the top 100 Coin of the Year designs worldwide for 2025 and ranked in the top 10 in the Best Gold Coin category, out of 600 submissions from mints, banks and collectors around the world. Only one artist’s design is picked for a coin, which means Polentz’s selection placed his work inside a narrow national process with limited final spots.
For Polentz, who has taught art courses for nearly 40 years at various colleges and worked as a freelance illustrator, the project joined his classroom and illustration background with a federal coin program that asks artists to turn history into something that can be struck in metal.
